Training on peacemaking journalism, techniques of conflict reporting and the destruction of stereotypes was held on April 14-15-16-17, 2013 for reporters of online and print media from Osh, Jalalabad and Batken oblasts of Kyrgyzstan in Bishkek. The aim was to train participants to media tools on reducing the charge to a confrontational society, techniques of confrontation to the destabilizing information coming from outside, the organization of post-conflict rehabilitation of the journalists, finding joint mechanisms to improve the efficiency of peacemaking media efforts. “I gained a lot of useful knowledge during the training. Now I know how to cover conflicts properly not pumping the situation,” training participant Ibraghim Azimzhanov, a correspondent for "Osh Shamy” newspaper, said.

There are a lot of problems that may be solved by covering them in local media outlets. This training has taught journalists from southern Kyrgyzstan to report on conflicts properly and efficiently use media tools to reduce confrontation, Azimzhanov says. The training was held in the form of interactive discussion. Reporters learned from the theory of reporting on conflicts and consolidated their knowledge by participating in an interactive game, prepared by experienced trainers Arif Aliyev (Azerbaijan) and Ashot Melikyan (Armenia). A number of presentations demonstrating how innocent jokes, recorded on video and publicized on You Tube, can cause conflict and how it can be avoided, were shown to training participants. Special attention was paid to the toolkit for journalists on covering conflicts and ethnic diversity; providing materials with voices of children and women in media.In joint with the trainers, journalists have developed a Glossary of Stereotypes, which is a handbook for journalists working in conflict areas, and organized an improvised press conference, during which the representatives of the different ethnic communities exchanged views on the post-conflict situation in the south, trying to avoid stereotypes and clichés.At the end of the training, a film "Indivisible Island” on the ethnic problem in Cyprus was shown to the participants. The reporters discussed the issues raised in the film, and developed a scenario of conflict resolution. According to trainer of the project Ashot Melikyan, journalists from different media, living in conflict-pron areas must learn to trust each other, to understand that the problem of the Osh conflict of 2010 still lives in Kyrgyz society, and there are issues that needed to be discussed."Journalists will sooner or later have to cover this issue in media outlets, that is why techniques  of overcoming stereotypes and clichés need to be  learned right  now",  Melikyan concluded. 

 Today, the School of Peacemaking and Media Technologies has been trained about 80 journalists from media outlets in southern Kyrgyzstan. The training was conducted by specially developed techniques, which are based on practical experience of building media dialogue in conflict-prone areas of the world: the Balkans and the Caucasus. Within the School webinars on destroying stereotypes, clichés, and overcoming the image of the enemy in mass media are conducted.

14-15-16-17 апреля 2013 г в Бишкеке состоялся очередной тренинг для репортеров онлайн и печатных СМИ Ошской,Жалалабадской и Баткенской областей на котором журналисты обучались техникам освещения конфликтов и разрушению стереотипов.Целью мероприятия было обучить участников медиа-инструментам для снижения конфронтационного заряда в обществе, техникам  противостояния дестабилизирующей, нагнетающей информации, поступающей извне; организации постконфликтной реабилитации самих журналистов, поиску совместных механизмов  для повышения эффективности миротворческих усилий СМИ. 

«Я почерпнул много полезных знаний на тренинге. Теперь я знаю, как освещать конфликты правильно, не нагнетая обстановку», - говорит участник тренинга Ибрагим Азимжанов,корреспондент газеты «Ош шамы».В нашем регионе много проблем, которые можно решить, освещая их в местных СМИ. Данный тренинг научил журналистов юга Кыргызстана правильно освещать конфликты и грамотно использовать медиа-инструменты для снижения конфронтации, говорит Азимжанов.

Тренинг прошел в форме интерактивной дискуссии. Журналисты ознакомились с теорией освещения конфликтов, а также закрепили свои знания посредством участия в интерактивной игре, подготовленной  опытными тренерами  Арифом Алиевым (Азербайджан) и Ашотом Меликяном (Армения).Участникам тренинга был представлен ряд презентаций, показывающих, как   невинные шутки,зафиксированные на видео и растиражированные в YouTube, могут послужить причиной развития конфликта и как этого можно избежать.